Tony, Nanette, and Sukki were ready to get out of the hospital as soon as the sun rose on the next day.  Tony finished his book and started pacing, waiting for the others to show up.  Nanette and Sukki relaxed in their room. Apparently, they stayed up most of the night talking about one thing or another.

The travelers agreed to stay a week to ten days so the police could catalogue all the destruction they caused, even if they were not the ones who actually caused it.  It involved a couple of interviews and lots of police paperwork that made Lockhart laugh.

“I used to have to fill out things like that, in triplicate.”

They actually stayed two weeks so they could see the premier of the movie their friends were in.  Lockhart and Katie took Sukki to the movies three or four times before that.  They introduced her to popcorn and introduced Tony and Nanette to talking pictures.  When they saw one in technicolor, they all felt amazed.

The couple got the travelers tickets to the premier.  They had a wonderful time. The man said the critics liked the movie well enough in the screening.  The woman said, now they would see if the audience liked it as well.

The next day, Mishka took them all to a sound stage.  Lincoln remarked that they had not been bothered by a time displacement since the time in the alien woods.

“And I don’t think you will,” Mishka said.  Doctor Mishka brought them all to an isolated area where they had lights but no cameras.  She said the stage was not being used that day, and she had already warned the security guards that she would be borrowing it for the day, and she did not want to be interrupted.”

“Polio research or training?” the head of security asked.

“I will be experimenting, so keep everyone away,” she answered.

David and Gabriella were both there to watch and run interference if they did get interrupted.  When the travelers said they were ready, Mishka spoke as briefly as she could.  She reminded Lockhart and Lincoln that the Storyteller, her next life, had memory problems.  Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory messed things up in the ancient days when he traveled to the days of the Princess.”  Lockhart interrupted for those who did not know, and he realized of those present, only he and Lincoln knew, so he explained a little.

“Unless something of historical importance is happening, the Kairos does not know he has other lifetimes or anything about the Men in Black or anything else.  As far as he knows, he is just living an ordinary, normal life.  It must be hard, though, because the memory block is not perfect.  Past and future things keep leaking through.  That must make it very hard to function as a normal person.  When I first met him in Michigan, he only remembered the Princess, and that was not so bad.  When I met him again some years later, when the Vordan came to Earth, he got overwhelmed with the sudden influx of the memories from too many lives.  He almost became incapacitated. “

“Yes,” Mishka said.  “But he cannot tell you what you need to hear unless you screw up and become yourselves a threat to history.  I am hoping this advanced warning will prevent that.”  She continued with her speech until Katie interrupted.

“I was thinking about my identification that Gabriella so kindly typed.  I do have a doctorate in Ancient and Medieval cultures and technologies, but I would be afraid at this point to teach those classes because, frankly, I have learned better with some, maybe many things over the past five years.  I think I need to stick to my desk at the pentagon and maybe build a small department to go out on archeological digs, especially.  Someone needs to make sure the things people dig up are safe for human consumption.”

“We used to have a person who did that, but she retired recently,” Lockhart said.  “We haven’t filled that position.”

“Then it is settled…” Katie began, speaking primarily to Lockhart.

“Ahem.”  Mishka took back the conversation.  “That may work,” Mishka said.  “Alien lifeforms are not proven until Jennifer flies a science team to the asteroid belt, and even that comes back as grainy videos and digital information that plenty of people claim is all fake.  Keeping alien artifacts from disturbing the natural course and progress of the human race over the next hundred and fifty years or so will be important.  Alien technology discovered before humanity is ready for such things can skew everything.  But to continue…”

Mishka got to a point where she finally said something practical.  “Now, I don’t know if this is going to work.  Me being in the same room with the time gate is difficult enough.  It has not been long since I figured out how to do that, and the technique is a bit shaky.  Projecting the appropriate gate from the Heart of Time on Avalon to this studio stage is another thing entirely, but here goes.”  Doctor Mishka closed her eyes and held up her hands.  Something rumbled.  For a few seconds, it felt like a real California earthquake.  A great flash of light made people blink and turn away, and they heard Mishka pushed back to fall on her rump.  “Ouch,” she said, before the gate stabilized.  “Let us hope the next two are not so dramatic,” she added.

“Just the one gate,” David said.  “She hoped to have three gates side by side which is why she wanted such a big, enclosed space.”

“Hush,” Doctor Mishka quieted everyone.  She nodded and appeared to be listening intently before she spoke.  “We will have to do this one at a time,” she said.  “This gate is 1914.  We will do Elder Stow next and then the regular gate to 2015 if we can bring it here.”

Lockhart, Katie, and Lincoln all looked at each other, and Katie asked.  “What do you mean Elder Stow next?”

Lincoln added, “I assumed he came from 2010 like the rest of us.”

“Ah, no,” Elder Stow said.  “In the past, especially the deep past, your time and mine seemed so close together, and so far away, it hardly mattered.  I am sorry.  As the time drew closer, I felt I should say something, but it never seemed the right time.  You see, my two children and I were picked up in 1932, a couple of years before now.  I am ashamed to say my Father and Mother started working with a certain fellow in Germany.  I have heard you speak of the man and some of what he does or did.  I am sorry.  I hope to rectify the situation when I get there.  I am sorry.”

“His return date is early 1941,” Mishka said.  “We have discussed it, thoroughly.  It would not be right for him, at this time, to interrupt what has already happened from his life perspective.  Changing events now might well alter the future, and that is what we are trying to avoid.  He might even get shunted off into a parallel earth and have no way back to this reality.  And unlike regular attempts at time travel, the math of energy expenditures and such, that I really don’t understand but Martok understands, he will not automatically be drawn back into his correct time at some point.  In fact, he might accidentally fall through a time gate on Earth or out there somewhere, and find himself who-knows-where, in the middle of some atomic war.  He won’t age the number of years difference or get younger because he will still be out of sync with his own time zone.  It would be a mess—a potential mess.”

“Take a breath,” Decker said.

Mishka smiled.  “I haven’t done that since Heidelberg.  You people are so nice, I feel like a talker again for the first time in years.”

“In any case,” Elder Stow spoke to finish the story.  It came out like a confession. “My companions and I were set down in the days of Danna, the Celtic goddess.  We saw the chaos going on there and quickly scooted back in time.  It took a bit to figure out we were going backwards, not forwards in time, and I thought that perhaps we could go back to the time of the flood and somehow hold on to our place and land on the Earth.  I saw three times when my Gott-Druk people returned to the Earth with no good intentions.  In Tetamon’s day, the Elenar were present, and I felt even the first time through that somehow my people were on the wrong side.  I found us again in Wlvn’s day, but the Gott-Druk there, the meat eaters… Even I felt they needed to die.  The third time, we passed through Odelion’s island peacefully.  We got all the way to Saphira’s time, but the huntress caught us and explained that the time gates ended at the Tower of Babel.  The Heart of Time began at that time.  The gates did not extend all the way to the flood.”

“So, you gave up that dream,” Sukki said.

“Not the dream, but that way of achieving the dream, certainly.  We turned around and came forward, and found our people, where a scout ship landed on the small island in Odelion’s day.  That whole trip took us about four years.  You understand, we did not move as quickly or efficiently as all of us moved coming forward in time.  We did not have horses, among other things.  It took months of negotiations to settle matters and make a plan.  I knew about the Kairos by then, and knew he had to be removed from the equation.  We went to do that very thing and you people showed up, and the Elenar showed up.  My children died, and when you left the island, I followed with every intention of killing you.”  Elder Stow sighed.  “But I have learned some things on this journey as I have said.  One is that forgiveness is a good thing.  I sleep better and the food does not grumble in my stomach.  We Gott-Druk should let go of our grudges.  Stupid and stubborn is not the way to grow fat and full of wisdom.  Another thing is touch.  Hugs are good.”  He reached out and hugged Sukki, and everyone else.

“So,” Decker said rather loudly since he was not really a hugger.  “Having all hugged, we are ready to go.  Any idea what we will face when we get there?”

“Heidelberg,” Doctor Mishka said.  “I was in residency at the University Hospital.  You will see.  Go on.”

There were more hugs and some tears, but Decker, Nanette, and Tony went, disappearing in time.

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MONDAY

Episode 10 July Crisis will be four posts long: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday. In fact, episodes 11 and 12 will also be four posts long, so don’t miss the Thursday posts. Thus, the last three episodes in book 9, the end of the Avalon series, are shorter, but, well, you will see. In the meanwhile, Happy Reading

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